A/N: This story is set roughly a month or so following Corypheus's defeat at the hands of Inquisitor Lavellan and will contain so many spoilers, so I'd encourage anyone who doesn't want major plot points revealed to finish up Inquisition before reading! That said, however, I felt the need to explore what could happen after the end of the game - particularly, but not limited to, that horrible cliffhanger they left us with. This story is going to include primarily elements of Inquisition, however, characters and plot points from Origins and Dragon Age II are going to be folded in as events progress. I have a very expansive adventure planned for these characters, so thank you to anyone who takes the time to read and stick with the story!
The Raven's Song
Inquisitor Lavellan sat perched upon the railing of the balcony extending from her private quarters, one knee hugged tightly to her chest, the other dangling carelessly in the open air. The wind pulled gently at her slight frame and at her hair, tossing deep crimson half-curls across her nose and around her shoulders. Such a position probably wasn't the wisest place to spend the evening, nor would many in Skyhold choose to brave the couple hundred foot fall that threatened should her balance falter; on a warm night such as this, however, and with a moon so full and bright, Velatha couldn't imagine spending it locked away inside.
In fact, she rarely spent her nights inside save when it was time to sleep. Ages ago, when she still lived with her clan, she would sometimes abandon her tent to sleep on the grass below the moon and stars. Once, so far in the past when the world still made sense to her, she and Solas had slept on a pile of blankets atop one of the battlements on a night very like this one. That night, they had watched stars fall from the heavens over the tips of the Frostbacks.
It was funny to think that only a few months separated her from the woman she had been then, as opposed to the worn creature she felt like now.
She swallowed the memory, expending more effort than she'd like to admit attempting to push it down below the surface. Throughout the festivities following Corypheus's defeat she'd done the same; with a little drink now and again, she'd managed to get just sloshed enough each night that she could almost enjoy herself, that she could hide the raw hole that had opened in her heart.
Nobody cast her sidelong glances or hovered over her, attempting to make sure she was alright. Each of her friends had asked once, in private, how well she was holding up. She'd told each of them the same thing: "I'll be fine, really. I've already got more than enough on my mind."
The only person who'd seemed unsatisfied with her answer was Varric, but even he never pressed the point. Still, Velatha knew he was supposed to return to Kirkwall at the beginning of last week, not keep sitting in the hall, scratching on parchment and swindling anyone brave enough to sit down with a deck of cards.
Elves were supposed to be the perceptive ones; then again, making a living in the merchant's guild would do that to a person.
The Inquisitor's watercolor green eyes scanned the starlit horizon, probing the mountaintops and shaded valleys for...she wasn't sure what anymore. Ever since he disappeared, she refused to allow herself the hope that Solas would ever return. He hadn't even deigned to say goodbye, so she had no reason to fool herself into thinking otherwise. In fact, for the most part she refused to let herself think of him at all. Now that all the celebrations were over, she had too much on her plate what with dodging nobility left and right and trying to raise some kind of order from the ashes of Thedas to indulge her grief. Too many eyes were upon her day and night for her to give way to her tears, her silent wishes.
Still, he lingered in her mind, like mist above the dead waters of the Fallow Mire.
With a quiet, heavy sigh, Velatha swung her leg over the balcony and hauled herself back into her bedchamber. It seemed the stars would offer her no comfort this night.
She crossed the room to the round oak table occupying one corner, twitching her fingers ahead of her as she walked. The half-burnt candle stub in the center of the table flickered to life and illuminated a stack of sealed missives and letters that awaited her attention. Whatever fool notion she'd had about the Inquisition no longer being needed after Corypheus was neutralized had long since been disabused by the sheer number of people seeking her advice on how to move forward, politically, militarily, personally. Each time she answered a batch of these requests, a new one was dropped before her to take its place.
The Inquisitor took up her vigil in the swaying candlelight, the lonesome silence soon consumed by the scratch of her quill and the gentle sigh of the wind playing through the fortress spires.
"Inquisitor!"
The call echoed through Skyhold's main hall, reverberating off of the stone walls and filling the marginal quiet. Velatha, who had previously had her nose buried in the copy of Hard in Hightown she'd promised to read, looked up in immediate alarm at the sound of Leliana's voice. Her advisor, for the time being at least, was walking quickly up the red carpet adorning the center of the hall with possibly the largest smile on her face that Velatha had ever seen.
"Inquisitor, I have news," she said when she reached the elf's table.
"Is something wrong?" Velatha asked on instinct. She felt silly as soon as the words left her, but she'd been asking what was wrong for so long now that it had become a habit.
"Quite the opposite, in fact. It is good you are sitting down," Leliana teased, pulling out a seat for herself. "One of my agents stationed in the Arbor Wilds just reported spotting a bald elf investigating the area around the Temple of Mythal. It could be coincidence, or perhaps we have finally discovered Solas's whereabouts."
Velatha had been on her feet again at "bald."
"Are you certain?" she asked over the sound of her thunderous heart.
"Quite certain, yes," Leliana answered. She stood up again as well, since apparently this wasn't the sitting down kind of news she'd anticipated. "Shall I send someone to investigate further?"
"Yes," Velatha said immediately, although she changed tack and added, "No. I mean, yes. I mean─"
The Inquisitor trailed off with a frustrated noise and pressed the heels of her palms to her forehead. That was literally the last piece of news she could have possibly expected Leliana to bring her. She knew that the spymaster had agreed to pass Solas's description out to her agents in the hope that they might one day find him, but she had never expected anything to come of it. A mage as talented as he was could stay hidden as long as he wanted to, and something told the Inquisitor that, so soon after his disappearance, he wasn't yet ready to show himself again.
Unless whatever he was doing at the Temple had subsumed his attention so thoroughly that he had become careless.
After several long moments, and several gentle, unanswered questions of "Inquisitor?", Velatha lowered her hands from her face. Her eyes darted to the side, suspicion passing through them like a swift shadow. "No," she said with an absent kind of certainty, "don't send anyone. I'll look into this myself."
A silence, electric with surprise, settled between the two women. At length, Leliana ventured, "Inquisitor...are you so sure that is wise? We are in the middle of rebuilding…"
"I know, but─" Velatha pulled up short, unsure how to continue her thought without sounding too selfish. It was selfish, she knew, to want to run off to find her former lover when the world still asked so much of her, even if she had repeatedly risked her own life to save the lives of...well, everybody. There really was no good way to say, "I saved your arse, so give me this one."
Leliana, thankfully, seemed to sense exactly what was moving through her head. Her concerned expression softened into a small, knowing smile, and her voice lowered slightly. "The report is two days old, but the temple holds many secrets. If I send word now, my people could intercept him before he vanishes again."
Velatha turned her pale eyes onto her spymaster's, mingled hope and sympathy staring back at her. It was all she could do to keep her own disappointment out of her gaze. She knew that Leliana was right, that there was still too much to be done for her to go running off for no reason, but that didn't mean she couldn't want to.
After a long moment, the Inquisitor steeled herself, took a subtle deep breath, and said, "No, don't intercept him. Have them watch for now. I want to know why he returned to that temple."
Leliana's ginger eyebrows lofted. "You suspect he is up to something, Inquisitor?" she asked.
Velatha set her jaw against the knot in her stomach. Turning her back on her advisor, she began to move off toward the door to her chambers. Quietly, but loudly enough for her voice to carry, she said, "I have no doubt."
Varric sat at one of the tables lining Skyhold's main hall, Iron Bull to his left, Cole to his right. The hall was shrouded in darkness; at the dwarf's insistence, the candles upon the table remained unlit.
"Trust me, we need the element of surprise," he had explained.
The three had been waiting in near silence for the better part of an hour. Cole, the poor kid, had been dozing on and off the whole time. He was still getting used to the limitations of his human form, even months after committing to a life of mediocrity just like everybody else. Well, in his case, maybe "mediocrity" wasn't really the word.
The Bull, after hearing why Varric had convened the only remaining adventurers at Skyhold, had shut up and stayed that way without complaint. However, the night was dragging on, and he'd been growing restless. Shifting in his seat for the tenth time in two minutes, he leaned a little closer to Varric and, as quietly as he was capable, inquired, "You sure about this?"
The corner of the dwarf's mouth twitched upward in a sad smirk nobody could see. "Listen," he whispered back.
The ringing silence in the hall was broken, only just barely, by the quiet, deliberate lift of a latch. One of the doors, they all knew which one, at the far end of the hall swung outward and closed again a moment later. Footsteps like leaves falling on dry grass whispered over the stones.
Varric struck a small tinder and lit a candle. "Going somewhere?" he called, without turning to see who'd entered.
Velatha Lavellan froze in her tracks and hissed, "Shit."
"You didn't think you could pull one over on us, did you, Inquisitor?" Varric chuckled as he rose to his feet. He'd seen this conversation coming days ago, as soon as he'd rifled through Leliana's latest batch of incoming reports. The situation was anything but funny, but he wanted to keep it light for at least a little while, if he could.
Velatha, however, didn't look amused. "What are you doing here, Varric? What's going on?" she asked, suspicion coloring her tone. Her narrowed eyes moved between the dwarf, the qunari, and the progressively waking boy still seated behind the two.
"Could ask you the same thing," Varric pointed out.
Velatha remained silent.
"C'mon, Boss. We know what was in Red's report," Bull admitted, bluntly but not unkindly. He didn't see the point in beating around the bush when everybody was clearly on the same page.
Still, Velatha's lips pursed at his words and she turned her eyes away from them all.
"Are you sure it's a good idea to go after Solas? In the middle of the night, alone, without telling anyone?" Varric pushed. "You are still the Inquisitor. This place would fall apart without you holding up the rafters."
One of the slender muscles along the Inquisitor's neck twitched momentarily. "And what would you have me do, Varric?" she asked at length. Her voice was calm enough, but restrained.
"Well, if it were up to me," the dwarf answered easily, "you'd forget the blighter and lead the world into the next golden age. But...I'm not gonna be the guy who tries to make your decisions for you. I'm just saying, maybe we should think this through."
"Are you saying I haven't already?" Velatha challenged, finally turning to look at them all again.
Varric held up his hands in quick surrender. Actually, he imagined she'd spent the past several days unable to think about anything else. "Not at all. We all know you want to find Solas. After the shit he pulled, I can't blame you. You need answers─"
"This is about more than just answers, Varric," the Inquisitor interrupted. "You saw those reports. He's been at that temple for over a week. Something is going on."
"Which Leliana's people could easily deal with," the dwarf pointed out.
"Solas is still a mage, a good one, and he knows more about what's in that temple, or what could be in it, than anyone. I'm not leaving a bunch of scouts to address this."
"From where I'm standing, it's starting to sound like you think Chuckles is up to something nefarious."
"I didn't─" The Inquisitor cut herself off, her mouth hanging open slightly as she worked around for something to say. Varric could practically hear the battle cries from the war raging behind her eyes.
He let out a quiet sigh. "I get it. You don't wanna think the worst of him. But that begs the question─are you running after him because of what you know, or because of what you feel?"
Slowly, the Inquisitor's eyes moved back to her companions. There could be little doubt about what was going through her mind. She hadn't exactly confided in anyone since Corypheus's defeat and Solas's disappearance, but she'd always been the type who could tell an epic tale without uttering a single word. It was the consequence, Varric had decided, of an expressive face and an honest heart.
The expression she wore now, the conflict and the uncertainty etched into the shadows of her face, reminded him of something she'd said to him after that elf had let her down.
"Of course it hurts. It probably always will, but it's not the pain that bothers me. It's not knowing why or what happens next."
At length, after the silence that had settled in the hall had almost grown comfortable, the Inquisitor softly but firmly said, "I have to know what he's doing, Varric. I have to see what was worth all this with my own eyes."
An easy smile overtook the dwarf then, and a somewhat mischievous glint leapt into his brown eyes. "So a little bit of both. Maybe I should come with you, then. Ancient temples, secrecy, mysterious disappearances─sounds like the makings of a great story to me."
"Better let me join up, too, Boss. Never know what kind of weird shit can come crawling out of ancient ruins," Iron Bull put in, crossing his massive arms across his even more massive chest. The Inquisitor opened her mouth to speak, but before she had the chance to say a word, he added, "Krem can look after the Chargers, no problem."
"Solas was my friend, too. If we're going to find him, I want to come," Cole declared, finally rising to his feet. All eyes immediately turned back to him, and he seemed to waver briefly beneath all the attention.
"I think that's settled," Varric said after a moment. He turned back to the Inquisitor and wasn't altogether surprised to see her smiling.
She looked to each of her friends, her eyes resting briefly on their determined expressions, and seemed to stand a little taller than she had in a very long time. With a little of the old Velatha beginning to shine through the cracks in her armor, she said, "Then what are we waiting for?"